Indigenous Australians lose $1.7 million to scams

Indigenous Australians who fell victim to scams in 2017 lost an average of nearly $6500 according to the ACCC’s latest Targeting scams report.

The ACCC’s Scamwatch website received 1810 scam reports in 2017 from Indigenous people with losses totalling nearly $1.7 million – a 14 per cent increase compared to 2016.

“Reports of scam activity to the ACCC from Indigenous people has, unfortunately, never been higher,” ACCC Deputy Chair Delia Rickard said.

The scam reported most by Indigenous people was unexpected prize and lottery scams (194 reports), while victims of dating and romance scams reported the most losses at $746,790.

Ms Rickard said Indigenous people should also be wary of online shopping scams and investment scams.

“Nearly one in every two Indigenous people who reported one of these scams to the ACCC lost money,” Ms Rickard said.

“These scams are very convincing which makes them hard to spot. In the case of online shopping scams, the scammer creates a very believable looking online store purporting to sell well-known products at great prices. It always pays to do a Google search about an online store before you make a purchase to see if it might be a scam site.”

“With investment scams, the scammer will start with a cold call to their victim promising low risk investments for very high returns. They will spend months grooming their victims and even use flashy brochures and websites to give them an air of legitimacy. Once a victim invests, they’re quickly convinced to put more and more money in. As soon as the victim tries to cash in on their investment, the scammer quickly disappears,” Ms Rickard said.

This week is Scams Awareness Week and the ACCC is warning all Australians to Stop and check: is this for real?

“Scammers are very good at what they do. They will commonly pretend to be trusted from government agencies and threaten you with arrest, or say you've received an increase in your benefits, to get your money and personal information,” Ms Rickard said.

“Never give them this personal information; any of your banking details; or remote access to your computer. Contact the agency they say they’re from directly to see if they’re telling the truth by finding their phone number in the phone book or an online search.”

To help reduce the impact of scams on Indigenous peoples, the ACCC engaged in targeted scams awareness outreach in nine Indigenous communities across the Northern Territory. Since the outreach we have seen a reduction of funds sent from these communities to overseas scammers of 40 percent.